No. 4 ranked Panthers blank Braymer

Saturday

Sep 1, 2012 at 12:00 PM

Class 1 fourth-ranked Panthers withstood a torrential downpour of rain and had little trouble with its footing on a muddy football field Friday as Salisbury racked up 329 yards of total rushing en route to earning a 38-0 home victory against Braymer.

Chuck Embree, MI Sports Reporter

Class 1 fourth-ranked Panthers withstood a torrential downpour of rain and had little trouble with its footing on a muddy football field Friday as Salisbury racked up 329 yards of total rushing en route to earning a 38-0 home victory against Braymer.

“On Tuesday we studied a weather forecast and we were expecting to be playing in the rain so we prepared for that element during our practices,” said Salisbury football coach Kirk Stott. “We got a trash can full of water and would soak the football to use during our practices so our players would get use to the weight of the ball and how slippery it would be to handle. That kind of preparation helped us. We had four fumbles but they all happened on the exchange between our quarterback and ball carrier and we did not turn the ball over. Braymer, I think, had about 4 turnovers in the game and we used that to our advantage.”

Stott said despite the onslaught of rain coming from remnants of Hurricane Isaac, Salisbury’s football field was in good shape and his players had good footings for the most part.

“We reached the Red Zone twice and stalled out before we scored our first touchdown. After that score, I think we scored on just about every possession but maybe 1 or 2 for the rest of the game. We controlled both sides of the ball from there on,” said Stott.

The Panthers scored late in the first quarter and had two rushing touchdowns in the second that led to an 18-0 halftime lead.

Salisbury (2-0) put up 20 more points in the third, and would insert its reserve players late in the third to close out the game while a running clock was executed.